What happened this week ?

 Well what happened this week? Well after two days of flooring install last weekend Monday we tried to recover, all this DIY is painful, sore muscles sore knees. Then Tuesday I woke up with some kind of bug that kept me flat out in bed for one entire day , and for the rest of the week I could not eat much at all. But I seem mostly back to normal.
Good thing too because our marble has been ordered and is on its way to our city and should be ready in two weeks. Oh I have some great news to share. Our sink that I had to order which is a single bowl, square edged stainless steel, 16 gauge , deep sink came in way under what it was supposed to. Comparable sinks come in typically around $700 ours came in $330 and it is Canadian made and so so stylish. Amaze Balls!!!

So I was able on Wednesday to hand sand the entire floor with my orbital sander , each joint had to be sanded smooth. I maybe should have rented a big sander but I wanted to use what I had readily available. I duct taped my sander to the shop vac to keep the dust down. And after checking and emptying the shop vac I kept an enormous amount of dust from our environment. It was full of fresh pine dust.
So then onto staining. That was a crazy huge messy job, second guessing my decision there for a minute.

 I have completed one of two coats , its looks a bit chalky and blotchy but after a second coat it will all be extra dark and just what we are looking for . I am looking forward to the end result.

 I started on this little space first , man that stain is messy. I used oil because it spreads and soaks in much better quicker and deeper. But the fumes made me loopy and are ever lasting, major downside. I will have a ton of touch ups to do to my trim.

 You can see how I have the sander taped up to the vac hose , brilliant right, I saw it on a blog , I can not remember which blog.

 This week Sophie chose this super cool light for her bedroom. It is from Rona. Love it , it will look great when the walls are all painted.

One major even occurred this week , grade 8 graduation dress shopping. We we were just looking ....but when we found the cutest purple fluffy dress for Mason why not just get it right? You don't want to risk not finding it again with grad so close. I am having a little trouble with the fact that my first born has almost completed all of grade school. How is it that possible, I remember it like yesterday her being in kindergarten and now that way off in the future place imagining her in grade 8 walking down the stairs in a pretty dress all grown up is already here? Its pretty sad to think it all went by so fast.
They are colourful aren't they ???? Mason wanted a short pageant style dress, she loves the ideas of pageants because of toddlers and tiara's , too funny. The dress looked perfect on her . She tried on about 6 and we found just the right one for her. It was a painless , fun and successful shopping trip.

So that is mush of what happened this week. Got the down payment on the marble paid so that is in motion now , yippy.
Moving on to removing some kitchen cabinets, adding a gable to the fridge area and installing a deeper cabinet above from IKEA, thank you IKEA $48 is all that will cost. Moving over the entire all of uppers beside the fridge too , not so exciting. Gonna be sore again ...

Pine floors

 I am very excited to share with you the mammoth job we completed over the weekend. I took two FULL days to install 335 sq feet of flooring. We have used t&g red pine 6" flooring. We bought it at Tyrone Mill locally , although I hear it comes from Maine??? it worked out to be $1.60 per foot .
All that needs to be done as far as flooring goes on the main floor is the entry way . Well the carpet will be replaced with pine in the dining room , living room and family room over the summer.

 We completed the kitchen and the hall and then we felt while at it finishing the powder room flooring was something we just had to do , even though we were tired and sore. Feeling a little old and achy right now. My fingers feel swollen and battered, well I did hit my finger with a hammer , just once though.
So since we wanted to try some flooring designs in the living and family rooms we figured we could try out something special in the powder room, a tester of sorts.
In case you are wondering it was hard to do , I have no instructions and now I know why it's so hard to find instruction on this type of project. It is time consuming and requires all of your attention while doing an install like this , no time for a photo summary and instructional here, sorry. All I can say is we used a speed square and laid the insets on a 45 degree angle. OK one tip , putting in the frames should be done after the diagonals are in place, we had to remove the vertical pieces during the install to get the angled pieces in.The horizontal framing around the room was installed before the insets and didn't create a problem at all. OK one more tip , start with a triangle and install them tongue out .
Would you ever try this???
Do you like it , we love it ?
I insisted we had to remove the toilet and sink  that was interesting , the toilet looked heavy!!! And it was a good thing we did because without the toilet and sink it was tight working in there.
Now I can paint... I am not going to put back the pedestal sink. I am going to try and make something special , who needs a sink , we will rough it with hand sanitizer for a little while.

 Here is the view from the laundry room.I love a good hallway.

 It will be so much easier to paint and frame that mirror with out the sink  in there. It looks so much better than sub floor with a stapled down piece of vinyl flooring.

 Here is the view from the front entry. This place needs a good cleaning , there is dust everywhere. I finally know what it feels like to deal with reno messes.
 We used twin fitted sheets to cover our tv's to prevent dust from getting at them, they worked very well.

 You can't see all the work that went into this little area , can you ? Like cutting down the jams , ripping the piece against the wall , ripping the threshold pieces and all the measuring and fitting things in just so. Everything fits so well if I do say so myself.

 This means we can , scratch that , I can now lightly sand the floors then stain them all Kona. We can then move onto making a few adjustment to the cabinets and then we can finally paint them the grey. Then the counters , then back splash and shelves and pendants, oh and the island ....this may take a while?

Well there you have it , a little tour of our casa with some new pine floors.
Yes we will be adding a shoe moulding and quarter round, but not till after the staining is completed .

I must go and try to clean this place up and put away the piles and piles of tools.Bye for now.

flooring day ...

 We woke up bright and early this Saturday morning to enjoy some coffee and slowly wake up. I think we were a little nervous at what may be ahead but we finally dove right in.
You know the hardest part is getting things started and straight, this took some serious time but we got things started off well .

 After living with sub floors for almost a month I can say I will not miss any part of them. We let the kids do a little doodling .
It's tough to have such a dirty surface , things just never feel clean.

We cleared out the table and chairs , refrigerator and even the island. The cabinets were shimmed with scraps of hardwood flooring so that we could install our own flooring under the cabinets as well. This meant there was a lot of hard work involved in getting those floor boards under the cabinets , back breaking work. But we did it , well most of it. We will finish it tomorrow.

We are getting closer to having a stove , all we now need is to complete the install and stain then top coat the floors and then its installation time.

It has been very very messy. 

 Here is the transition into the family room. The family room floor will come later , all I care about now is getting rid of all the sub floor , I have priorities.

So far so good , it looks great so far and it has gone down rather smoothly. Having all the right tools for the job makes such a big difference, it makes everything run much more smoothly.

We have decided to take a break for tonight after working at it for 9 hours, oh my aching back.
We will begin again tomorrow and will get the kitchen done and the hall and hopefully the powder room also. Wish us luck . See you again Monday .

Pine flooring installations are beginning tomorrow

Tomorrow and over the weekend we will try to complete the kitchen flooring as well as the hall to the laundry room and basement and the powder room.

Do you wonder why I am sharing this photo of this gorgeous floor above ? Well to my sheer shock my husband is game to install our flooring in the family room in this same manner. Why not do something fabulous with the install? We are going for it .

I am so excited and a little bit nervous to start the flooring install tomorrow morning. After patiently waiting 2.5 weeks for the wood to acclimate and mostly waiting for my husband to be available to help with this project. We normally do not work on DIY projects together so wish us luck , I hope by the end we will still be speaking...
I was able to finally track down a flooring nailer that wasn't over $500, I had to drive quite a distance to track it down , but it provided me some quality time with Sophie. This is a King Canada nailer , I have one other King Canada tool that I am happy with so I have hopes this nailer will be just fine. And was only $199.00 I believe it is normally $299.00.

 Yesterday I thought that it was the day our dishwasher was arriving so I turned my attention to Mason's room , cleaning it, organizing it . It feels so much better now . It needs paint and a light fixture still but I feel so much better about it now. Sorry about the dark bad photo...
Oh I was wrong about the dishwasher being delivered , today is dishwasher day, AND it is marble measuring day...

Well wish us luck , I will make sure to take lots of photos.

Show and tell time

 I was just minding my business at Home Depot the other day when I came across the most perfect brackets for our open shelving in the kitchen , aren't they gorgeous and so substantial and simple. I am only trying them out here with this Ikea shelf . This is NOT the finished look, I am just testing the scale.
Our plan for the window wall is to install horizontal planks.

 I have been so busy installing blinds all over the house , I am hoping this task will be over soon. Boy oh boy does this room ever need help, three mismatched chairs , strange . A sad ready to be replaced sofa and a blue coffee table that badly needs a makeover...it will all wait for now. The dogs don't seem to mind.

 As you may see I let my husband choose the size of the television in our family room, we installed it ourselves. I am so glad we went ahead and had our builder , our wonderful builder Tribute Communities, install the conduit for the HDMI cable , the installation was mostly painless. And although the TV is not subtle it does fit the space and it is our family room, we will enjoy movie time very soon.
 I got to choose the most beautiful Kelly chairs from the Elte outlet , they were an amazing deal at $99.00 , I could show you some " build yourself " chairs for much more. These are so beautiful , and the service at Elte was amazing. They bubble wrapped the chairs and loaded them into my car, I am so used to lugging purchases myself so this was a lovely treat. We went with 5 because things just look better in 3,5 and 7 right , and because when we have a guest , which is often we will be ready . These are burnt light oak , but they also had aged oak , black and white to choose from, beautiful.
Now to refinish the breakfast table I bought second hand for $40.00.

 Here is how our side/back yard is looking currently , like a mud pit. The birds like it , they bathe in those puddles actually.
Picture with me now , lush grass , trees , maybe even a in-ground hot tub back there behind the garage , a hidden oasis , can you see it ? We are going to have to plant lots of trees to block that awful back fence, but these things come with time.

 We are in a holding pattern. On Wednesday we can install the flooring , but I think it will wait until the weekend when my husband can work with me. You will notice the cabinets wait to be painted , the island is still sad and little , and the counters well they can not be installed until the floors are completed. So much to do , but already so much we love, this is a great house.

 I have these two helpful project just waiting to give me a helping hand. Oh I love liquid sandpaper , found it at Lowe's.

 While out picking up my beautiful Kelly chairs I went on a search for our counter slab with Sophie, New Age is in Concord and had a huge selection of Bianco Carrara, it was so easy to choose this slab . I think this will go very far , doing our kitchen counters , hopefully our fireplace hearth and our tub deck.

So that is my little show and tell , this is such a fun time , building this home. We are all so happy here and life is good. And the weather is gorgeous too , how could March be better.

Sophie's upholstered headboard

 I was able to start and complete a whole project at this house this week. See I seem to be able to start projects but other things just have to wait , until the floor is installed, oh those floors, three more days until they can be installed but truth be told it may have to wait a week , dealing with 16 foot long boards may just be a two person job.
Back to my headboard project, I used the super cheap OSB or chipboard plywood , had my Home Depot associate cut down the sheet to the width I needed which was 56" for the double bed. I had it cut down in height to 42", this fit perfectly into the back of my car, after I took it back in to have it trimmed down to the 42" from 48". It turned out to be the perfect height after all.
So I took it home and use my paper template that I made for a headboard I made way back when, I know I should insert the old post link but I'm so busy and a little too lazy to do that right now, apologies.
I used the jig saw to cut the oh so curvy stylish corners. Ok here it is. http://chriskauffman.blogspot.ca/2009/10/headboard-construction.html
Off Sophie and I went to choose the fabric and to pick up the foam and batting.
OK here is the thing about foam , it is pricey , but you must have foam I think . To cover this headboard with upholstery grade 2" foam would be $70.99 , that is a bit much for me. So here is what I did , I went to Canadian tire and went to the camping section and found this foam, http://www.canadiantire.ca/AST/browse/5/SportsRec/Camping/SleepingPads/PRDOVR~0762504P/Foam+Sleeping+Pad.jsp?locale=en   , it is perfect. I used the 24" wide version. My good friend has used this same foam for her headboard so I knew it was right. Then off to the fabric store for batting and fabric. Sophie chose this white fabric , I think it will look so pretty with the light lilac shade she has selected for her walls. For the nails I learned the hard way that nail strips work way way better than individual nails , I picked those up here http://www.leevalley.com/en/hardware/page.aspx?p=52744&cat=3,41306,41324&ap=1 I used the simple chrome.
So quick and easy.
We then went out and got a great cheap box spring from our favorite bed store , Sleep Factory and after getting a bed skirt we had a completely lovely bed for Sophie. The accent pillow with the butterfly we picked up at Homesense.
The bedding is from Ikea and cost $14.99, it is a duvet cover set.
Now if we could find a chandelier be-fitting this bedroom we would be so happy. But for now I celebrate the completed bed.

Settling in

 Great news we got our wood for the kitchen family room and hall last Wednesday. It needs to sit for two weeks in the house before we can install it. That also means no painting , that would be adding moisture and we are trying to dry out the wood and stabilize it for install, right.
This place is a mess, its cluttered with tools , supplies and mostly its dusty. I guess this is what its like with renovations going on .
I am working on the newel post beefing up the simple square style flat cap post I chose, I will be sure to take photos. The stairs can not be finished until the dust settles , it would be a nightmare to try and do a good job with so much dust flying around.
So for now we wait to install the wood floors, finish the wood floors and then install the brick floors. Then I can move on to the painting of the cabinets , building onto the island , then the new sink and counters, then the stairs can begin.
We went to look at slabs , that was very exciting , we did not find the the right slab yet but we will.

 I have installed all of the lights that I had purchased before our move, even the second smaller matching greenhouse lantern I made. I am getting really quick at lighting installations.

 My hubby ordered two new bottle openers for us, we need a bottle opener of course , once you've had one like this , you can not go back. We had one in the old house but we left it behind. It is a great gadget to have. I saw the polished chrome one and new it was perfect for my new fancy kitchen , the one that is still only in my head. The Texas opener will be for our outside space or maybe for the garage.
 Speaking of the garage we finally tackled the mess that took over on our crazy moving day, we put up shelves and organized enough so that I can now work in the garage and build things and  paint things. I can't wait to get out there and get things started, especially now that the weather is warming up. But I have the kids home this week for March break AKA spring break so they will surely slow down progress, today we went with my Mom to the zoo , that was a fun time , I really enjoy the animals.

Things I hope to accomplish this week are:
 ~ install blinds in the living room and bathrooms, I just got the call my custom blinds are in and ready for pick up, I hope they are right!!!
~ make a custom upholstered headboard for Sophie
~ order box spring for Sophie
~ try to organize the basement a little better than it is ( maybe not , probably not)
~ finish building up the newel post
~ install curtain rod and drapes in the family room on the garden sliding doors
~ work on tub deck and wall surrounding ( I tried the new tub and I may become a bath loving person after all.)

I will try to do what I can , but I'm tired already.

House tour part deux, upstairs

 Heading upstairs now.

 This the hall to the girls bedrooms. I installed the moravian stars up here , they are so lovely. I got these from Re-store , but they are Hampton Bay from Home Depot and retail for $149.00 but go on sale 40% off every now and again. Soon we will have dark 6" pine floors here and a finished railing. Eventually the door hardware will be changed and the sliders will be changed to matching doors as well.

 Sophie still needs a bed , I do believe we have decided I am making her a headboard an upholstered headboard. I should do that soon . The ivory canvas roman shades from Sears Canada turned out to be a great choice. They went up in about 5 minutes what a bonus.

 This is Sophie en suite bath . She has decided the cabinets painted white will work with her plans for a purple bathroom. We have chosen Tempset by Martha Stewart , it is a smokey purple. She still would like a marble counter top , maybe someday??? far far off. I also plan on framing the large mirror. I installed a vanity light I found at the Restore. Painting is not even on my short list .

 Here we have Mason's bedroom , it's a big room and still full of boxes, teenagers! We need to figure out a nice light . She wants black white and blue in this room. I gave her our old bed , it fits the room perfectly and I just love this bed and I know she likes it too.

 Here is her vanity area of her bathroom , is is a little messy , it will get worse. It's funny Sophie is so tidy and Mason well Mason is not tidy especially not in the bathroom, I've tried. The light is from Home Depot , not my favourite but it gives great light and that is what every girl needs right?

 Heading out of the girls bedrooms. This is such a pretty light , I love the light it casts.

 Todd's official office. He deserves a real room after making due in an unfinished basement for way too long. I'm so glad he has his own space. The comfy chair I bought him years ago paired with the old antiqued pine top of the old island and ikea saw horse legs, we like the direction. I also installed the same school house antique brass fixture here. I see a lot of custom built in shelving for this room , in the future.

 I love how the master bath turned out. I am so glad I went with the painted cabinets . The faux soapstone I am not so thrilled with , it marks with water terrible. Oh well. We are loving the separate shower with seamless glass, I just installed a rain shower head . I am very happy with the Martha Steward vanity lights I installed, they are perfection and make me so happy, Home Depot. They give is lots and lots of light, I am so glad I went with one over each sink instead of the standard one center light.

 The tub is another story , it isn't quite done. I saved a lot of money having it unfinished, I can install a nice marble tub deck and tile wall surrounding the window for much less than the upgrade would have been and it will be a fun project. I haven't totally decided on the finish of the tub apron , I am thinking cararra in some form.
Blinds are supposed to come next week, fingers crossed.

 And here is the master , with our new much loved king bed , it was a great decision for us , we are sleeping like babies. Next I am looking for drapery rods and simple Ritva off white linen look drapes from Ikea.

 We are enjoying every minute of all the extra space we are lucky to have. This mirror sure needs a lot of moulding treatment , in time.

 Well there you have it , the completed tour of our not completed house.
The pine flooring was delivered today , it needs to sit for two weeks before we can start the install. This is a sample of the flooring we are installing . Brick veneer in english pub, and kona oil stained pine floors , I can not wait for those two projects to be completed so I can move forward with all the other fun.

Thanks for all the comment , and thanks for stopping by.